Page 82 of Outcast
Emory’s gaze locked on mine as he pressed a finger into his mouth and sucked it. Ah god. I wasn’t gonna last much longer. “Hurry,” I urged. “Fuck yourself.”
He lowered his hand. I couldn’t actually see what he was doing, but his face went tense, then slack, and the tenor of his moan told me it came from deep within.
“Want to fuck you, golden boy,” I murmured. “Would you let me dick you down?”
“Yes,” he gasped. “God, please.”
“I’m gonna come. Gonna fill you up.”
He cried out, arching, his cock shooting streamers of cum across his stomach. Fucking beautiful. I came with a harsh breath, spilling over my knuckles.
I doubted I made nearly as pretty a picture as Emory. With his gold hair flopping into his eyes, his face flushed red from arousal, and cum streaking across his pale skin, he was the very image of a debauched angel.
And me? I was just the devil who was corrupting him.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
Emory
I sweptthe black Sharpie over my sketch pad, angling my hand to create a wide, dark line that reminded me of the ink decorating Gray’s body. A crooked line slowly took shape, then another and another. With each flick of my wrist, a sprawling tree emerged, branches bare of leaves, like a set of bones reaching for the sky.
On instinct, I added raindrops falling above it. Around it.
It was a striking image but one full of dread and grief.It wasn’t the first time I’d drawn it—or even the tenth. My eyes burned as I added a small figure in the branches of the tree.
My brother.
Right before he died.
This scene had haunted me for almost twenty years. But it was the first time I’d designed it like a tattoo rather than a painting. I’d been drawing tattoos—some complete pictures, others just abstract designs—ever since hooking up with Gray. Admiring his ink had unlocked something inside me, given me a spark of inspiration for the first time in years.
This image surfaced without thought, a pattern so familiar it snuck in while I was distracted. A symbol of my regret and my guilt. If I wore it on my skin instead of drawing it again and again, would it be a memorial—or merely penance for my part in what happened that day?
“Emory, you can go in now.”
I startled, slapping the sketchbook closed. Esther, the executive assistant at the Gold Community Foundation, smiled at me politely. Right. I’d been waiting for a meeting with Allison.
I shoved my sketchbook into my laptop bag and rose from the gray waiting room couch. “Thanks. Have a good morning.”
“You too, hon.”
Allison’s door was the first left halfway down the hall. I let myself in and took a seat at the small conference table tucked into the corner of her roomy office.
I might be the VP at a bank, but Allison had much nicer digs at the foundation. The building was newer, the decor and furniture designed to evoke comfort over business.
The only drawback was the atrocious art on the walls, store-bought reproductions of soulless prints of flowers and plants. I grimaced and focused on Allison instead.
There was a small crease in her forehead as she joined me at the table. “Sorry I kept you waiting.”
“It’s fine. I got here early.”
Anything to get out of the bank, where Dad kept checking over my shoulder as I completed the paperwork on the Forrester deal. He’d seemed almost disappointed when the formal appraiser had agreed with my assessment that the property would sufficiently cover the loan amount. Which had made me wonder if he’d actually trusted me to make the call or just assumed the plan wouldn’t work.
When I thought about it, that pit in my stomach started growing again. The one full of doubt and recriminations.
You’re bad at your job. All you do is fuck things up. You’re not the son Dad deserves. Not the one he should have.
“So, what was the holdup?” I asked Allison to distract myself from my anxiety spiral.
